Since its merger with Nextel back in 2005, Sprint has steadily been losing ground to Verizon and AT&T, lagging behind in innovation both with its product and service offerings. But over the past year plus, the company has made attempts to right the ship, building out its network reliability, adding an iPhone competitor in the Palm Pre and adding to its pre-paid market with the acquisitions of Boost and Virgin Mobile.

These are certainly valiant efforts to catch up, but given the company’s current image and market position, are they really enough? While it’s never easy to radically change the direction of any company, particularly one of such scale, doing so from the rearview mirror of the competition is much easier to justify. That’s not to say it’s time for carte blanche risks because nothing else is working, but there’s something to be said for making a big, albeit calculated, reach, particularly when there’s the opportunity to become a market leader.

Which is to say, identify a trend that reestablishes your brand as relevant within the marketplace and own it without losing track of your “true” business. Though lasting success is about more than one “idea,” creating a shift in perspective among your customers and employees can be transformative.

“Green” as a lifestyle might feel ubiquitous these days, but it still emerging as an imperative within the mainstream. As much as people want to be environmentally friendly, the disconnect between the desire and the practice is very real. This represents a huge opportunity for brands to step in to help bridge that gap, both leading by example and promoting sustainable product choices.

Sprint is smartly positioning itself to be the face of green business, not just among cellphone companies, but  companies across the board. CNET explains some of their programs:

“It plans by 2017 to be recycling or reclaiming 90 percent of its devices that will be in the market. The company has also committed itself to reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2017 and to also use renewable energy for about 10 percent of its energy consumption by that time as well. Currently, about 90 percent of the power used at the company’s headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas comes from renewable energy sources like wind.”

The company has also adopted a minimum set of environmental standards for its devices, eventually selling only handsets that meet or exceed these standards. The first such offering is the Samsung Reclaim, a cellphone that boast of being eco-friendly without sacrificing on functionality or affordability.

And while winning the “green” race won’t solve all of Sprint’s problems, it can certainly help change the criteria for evening the larger competition down the road.

[image via shikeroku]